Meat Merchant to expand into Republic

Posted on Monday 1 October 2018 byJohn Mulgrew

Meat mogul Peter Hannan says he will expand the retail arm of his successful Co Down business into the Republic this year, Ulster Business can reveal.

The Kildare-born businessman, who runs Hannan Meats in Moira, also believes that, following the negative outlook for the economy in the wake of the vote for Brexit, that the UK’s exit from the EU won’t happen.

In an interview with Ulster Business, Mr Hannan said: “Personally, I don’t think we will Brexit. We need to go and apologise, and say ‘as we were’ and just get on. It was a hell of a bad idea. It was sold based on rubbish information, and that’s why people made a rubbish decision.

“Now that we have a bit of clarity – Theresa May is bringing us to the cliff edge, and saying ‘that’s how far down it is – have a look, if you tell me to jump, I’ll jump… but we don’t have to’.”

And he said the business is looking at growing the retail arm of its business, Meat Merchant, into Dublin.

“We are now at a point, do we go forward with the likes of our Meat Merchant (the retail business at the headquarters in Moira), do we take that to a city? That wouldn’t be Belfast… Dublin would be next on the radar.

“The question is, if we decide to go south of the border, which we pretty much have, do we do it in Meat Merchant form, or in collaboration with a very good partner?"